A throng of union leaders, New York City council members, and service workers descended on Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’ New York headquarters on Thursday, to pressure Henry Kravis, one of the buyout giant’s founders, to pay more taxes.
The crowd of more than 150, some brandishing placards with slogans such as “No tax breaks for Buyout CEOs” and “Take back the economy”, was made of workers demanding an end to tax provisions that protesters say help private equity bosses pay lower tax rates than a janitor or security guard.
Andrew McDonald, a spokesman for the Service Employee International Union said the activists singled out KKR, rather than other private equity firms because it is the second biggest employer in the U.S. The union says the number of employees in KKR’s portfolio companies is 800,000.
Mike Fishman, President of SEIU’s Local 32BJ, said the tax dollars KKR doesn’t pay “deprives working people of social services.”
KKR owns businesses including mattress maker Sealy, software firm Sunguard and retailer Toys R Us.
In a statement, KKR said, “We disagree with the SEIU’s distortion of the facts and their street theater approach. We work hard to build better companies that benefit multiple stakeholders - including the millions of pension beneficiaries who receive good returns on our investments.”
“We’re calling for a code of conduct for treating workers more fairly,” said McDonald. “We have an economy that’s not working for working people.”
Several New York City political figures were present, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council members Eric Gioia and John Liu. Liu says that closing the New York City tax loophole in question, the Unincorporated Business Tax, would generate $100 million for New York City.
The union has plans to expand its advocacy. “Today it starts with taxes, but it will extend to a whole set of other issues,” MacDonald said.
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I think they should not be so childish and if they have a genuine point to pursue it via legal roads, not by simple harassment. Moreover I think KKR generate a lot more tax dollars than the security guard or janitor, and maybe if you taunt them long enough they will take there HQ elsewhere. Another very curious point is that you don’t hear them when the US economy is flourishing, this seems like a classroom example of the so-called “scapegoat”, maybe the NY council members should look at the policy makers and the actual culprits of this economic slow down we’re experiencing. Stop this madness..
- Posted by OlivierSorry, I made a slight spelling mistake. It should be “their HQ elsewhere.” I am Dutch so have an excuse.
- Posted by OlivierWake up call number 6? IndyMac is not the first one to go.
American’s woke up to another slap in the face, IndyMac.
The bank giant where many people deposited their life savings is going out of business.
There you had them!
People waiting in line to take their money out, only to be rejected later by other bank institutions when trying to deposit their money or what they could get of it because the letterhead of the cashier’s check had the infamous word: Indymac.
It was reported in the media that a california woman tried to deposit a cashier’s check from Indymac at a washington mutual branch in pasadena and she was told that it could take up to eight weeks for her funds to be available
Other bank institutions said that they are following the federal guidelines in regards to availability of funds on the new deposits, and that those same guidelines apply to checks from indymac.
The truth of the matter is that failures like indymac’s have name: greed from the Real Estate boom.
Now banks are paying the consequences, first it was Countrywide that have bailed out by a purchase from Bank of America, not without having the ceo (angelo mozillo) walk away with a multimillion severance package.
Now indymac is under investigation by the fbi for possible fraud in the subprime market.
According to the media reports, the investigation is focusing in the company and not in the individuals who run it.
- Posted by Nataniel RazApparently, indymac officials approved loans to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to qualify for one, leaving now thousands on the verge of foreclosure.
Stimulus Package “Deja vu”, Not really!
As the brains of our economy continue to brainstorm how to get us out of the mess the real estate market first got us in and now high gas prices and a declining economy over all the easy way out seems to be again, an economic stimulus package.
Not so fast, not again.
First president bush opposes it.
Second, according to the experts only 20 percent of the people who got stimulus package number one said the rebate led them to spend more and the rest, well it seems that the rest just took the money and put it into their savings account.
Economic stimulus package number one was suppose to get our slow economy going, by then president bush had not heard of a 4 dollar a gallon of gasoline.
By now that’s old news and as he put it on he’s own words “he’s heard of it now”.
Well now mr president one gallon of gas almost hits the 5 dollar mark, have you heard of it?
Anyhow, the 100 billion dollars in checks that circulated among many Americans (600.00 for singles, 1,200.00 for couples) apparently didn’t help.
The money went out on time and gas prices went up just on time as well.
With gas prices, food prices also went up.
Isn’t that how it usually works?
Gas prices go up everything goes up, after all business have to make up for the extra expenses and they just pass the check onto us.
Here’s an idea!
How about lowering the tax on gasoline?
Do we really know how much money we pay on gas taxes in the u.s?
Aren’t this taxes imposed by our government, well maybe our government can really give a stimulus to our morale and lower the taxes we pay on gas prices.
A lower tax in gasoline prices will stimulate business and consumers, it’s not rocket science!
Source for this quote: Wikipedia
- Posted by yanni raz“Fuel taxes in the United States vary by state. For the first quarter of 2008, the average state gasoline tax is 28.6 cents per US gallon, plus 18.4 cents per US gallon federal tax making the total 47 cents per US gallon”